Evaluating R&D Progress in the Context of the Safety Case
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Evaluating R&D Progress in the Context of the Safety Case L.H. Johnson and P. Zuidema, NAGRA, Hardstrasse 73, Wettingen, Switzerland ABSTRACT
The strategic approach and structuring of safety cases for nuclear waste repositories have seen marked improvements over the past ten to fifteen years as a result of the collective experience of national agencies in developing their safety cases and their efforts, under the auspices of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), to develop a systematic and thorough approach, as well as through systematic reviews by regulators and expert teams. A safety case can be developed at any stage in a program and it provides a remarkably effective method for reassessing design and siting requirements and refocusing R&D needs. The process of developing a safety case for a repository is the critical test of the quality of understanding that exists for a given repository concept, because it forces an integration of the siting and design strategies and the assessment approach. This integration demands that one evaluates all relevant R&D results available and addresses the questions i) is the system good? and ii) is the understanding sufficient, taking the stage of the programme into account? Here we address some questions on the relationship between R&D work and the development of a safety case, including: 1) Is the R&D performed in Europe evolving in concert with safety case development for European repositories? 2) How much generic work is still needed when robust site-specific repository concepts obviously lead to much more focused R&D? 3) How good is good enough and how do we measure this at each successive stage of repository development? There are no easy answers to such questions, but they must increasingly be addressed as national programs progress.
INTRODUCTION
A major meeting such as the MRS Symposium that focuses on the underlying R&D for disposal of radioactive wastes provides a good opportunity to look at the work being performed and how it fits into the needs of safety cases that are continuously being produced and updated by a number of national disposal programs throughout Europe. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how the R&D being done in support of safety cases should and does contribute and what can be done to strengthen the relationship between the research and the safety case needs. Of necessity, such a task must involve rather general comments and some of the observations are highly subjective and probably controversial.
THE SAFETY CASE IN BRIEF
It is useful first to quickly revisit what we mean by the term safety case. It can be briefly defined as “the set of arguments and analyses used to justify the conclusion that a specific repository system will be safe” [1]. The strategic approach and structuring of safety cases for nuclear waste repositories have seen marked improvements over the past ten to fifteen years as a result of the collective experience of national agencies in developing their safety cases and their efforts, under the auspices of the NEA, to d
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